[Galaxy S I9000 General] leoni1980:
I've had the phone over a week now and I'd like to give my insight as to what I love and what I dislike in comparison with the Nexus.

Just a few sentences.

First off about me: I'm a big texter, I use Twitter, Facebook, IM and general browsing the most, as well as listening to a lot of podcasts and music. SO here are my impressions taking this into account.

The screen: it is hard to fully express how much nicer this feels than the Nexus screen, but suffice to say whites are whiter, colours seem truer and tactile response is noticeably improved. The screen feels more close to your finger somehow...it's hard to put into words. Visibility in sunlight is noticeably better - not quite as visible as iPhone but perfectly acceptable.

Build quality of i9000 is not on a par with the Nexus in terms of its chassis, which seemingly uses cheaper plastics compared to the Nexus' metal architecture. I was still fairly happy with the Samsung's build quality at first but subsequently noticed little microscopic scuffs appearing on the battery cover and a little dink on the bezel. I swear I have only had the phone in my pocket and haven't been throwing it around. Although it isn't exactly in bad condition now I still resent the fact that after only TEN DAYS of careful use and pocket-placement I am already able to detect small signs of wear. On the other hand the screen on the i9000 looks to be of higher build quality - it is made from Gorilla Glass and to look at doesn't seem susceptible to dust contamination as the relatively highly-mounted Nexus digitizer.

The loudpeaker is important to me, and the Nexus had a crappy, hissy loudspeaker. Thankfully the Samsung i9000 speaker is more powerful with richer dynamics and less hiss. It is on a par with the iPhone 3G, if not slightly better as it seems a bit louder...great for listening to podcasts.

Camera.

Like-for-like testing of the Nexus and Galaxy in daylight shows what appear to be richer and sharper pictures on the Samsung. I suspect (judging by their use of rubbish loudspeaker components) that HTC use pretty bog-standard camera optics; and although the Nexus is pretty good most people would favour the Samsung shots under default conditions. The Nexus wins at dim-to-low-light shots though just because it has a flash and is therefore usable in more varied conditions. Video capture on the i9000 is just leagues ahead of the Nexus which not only records at a lower resolution but also produces muddier images with dreadfully low-quality audio. The Samsung also offers a consistent framerate of 30fps and handles low lighting really quite admirably compared with the Nexus.

UI

Since the i9000 only has Eclair there are a few notable missing features found only in Froyo. Despite this the Galaxy still outperforms the Nexus in all the Benchmarking tests I've seen. I haven't performed any benchmarks myself but a side-by-side comparison of both devices (Nexus with Cyanogenmod 6.0 RC) shows noticeably smoother scrolling on the Galaxy S in all apps, including the browser. There are some nice extras too: like quick access to WIFI, Bluetooth, Silent switch and Vibration mode from within the notifications bar. I also like the fact that you can change to different fonts on the i9000 across the whole UI. This gives the OS a slightly different feel which is nice.

Input -

This really fails the Galaxy S i9000. I've really come to realise how much I miss having some form of trackball with the Galaxy S.

On the face of it things seem fine; in fact RAW TEXTING on the i9000 is a lot more pleasurable than on the Nexus not only because of the greater screen real-estate but also because the screen itself is more responsive....but the caveat is that lack of a trackball or optical trackpad...

There is no reason why Samsung couldn't have included an optical button (as seen on the Omnia among other Sammy phones) to facilitate text selection. Judging by the iOS-inspired Touchwiz 3.0 it SEEMS that Samsung want some of the minimalism of the iPhone hardware and UI but what they have failed to notice is that the iPhone uses a long-press magnifying glass feature across the ENTIRE OS which allows for VERY EASY text selection, copying and pasting. Android, and Touchwiz does NOT include such a facility - just a half-hearted cursor pad in the default keyboard which is obtained by long-pressing the numeric button. This facility is clunky at best, useless at worst, since it necessitates using only the Samsung default keyboard if you wish to do any cursor movement, or irritatingly swapping from your preferred keyboard (such as my favoured Droid X IME) back to the default keyboard, then back to the preferred keyboard again. I've found myself having to do this a few times as it is often practically IMPOSSIBLE to select a passage or move the cursor to the exact right place without a d-pad or trackball. This really is a major failing for me and completely ruins things.

*EDIT* i've found that swiping from the Swype to the Sym key in Swype opens up a cursor system. I've tried to get along with Swype and haven't succeded so far but i'll give it a try again .

Media -

Owing to the great speaker, listening to podcasts on the i9000 is a pleasure. Music also sounds acceptable. The music control panel which shows up in the notifications bar when you are playing tracks is also genuinely useful.

One of the i9000's main selling points is not only its ability to record HD video but also to PLAY it. I've tested it with about twenty 720p clips from Youtube, and a number of 720p WMV files and it hasn't skipped a beat. Genuinely wonderful smoothness of playback. I haven't found a video of 720p or less that it wouldn't play as yet, although the BBC iPlayer downloads from Myplayer played without sound and necessitated Rockplayer.

Anyway I'm running out of steam now....but to conclude: I'm getting rid of the Galaxy S: it's a combination of overall build durability and a lack of nice, simple hardware features like a trackball and notification light that make me think that there will be something better along for me soon. I really like the phone and find it a joy to use but the few annoyances have spoilt it for me sadly.

If anyone near the midlands, UK wishes to buy an unlocked, unbranded Galaxy S with unopened accessories for a £290 before it goes on eBay then drop me a line.

Any other questions I will be happy to answer.